The Mighty Have Fallen
by Wintertime
Summary: Post-Stalker AU. Grissom handles arrangements. Character death.


Grissom always told himself that he didn't cry at funerals.  
  
He had made it through his father's with a perfect set of dry eyes, even when his uncle delivered his sloppily drunk eulogy and burst into tears. The first head of CSI he worked under had been shot on duty, and he had dressed impeccably, shown up on time, consoled the widow, and gone home to an empty townhouse to drink a tiny glass of whiskey in memoriam. He grieved; but grief did not move him to tears. It never had, not even when he was a child.  
  
And, at first, standing beside the closed casket, thinking about why it was shut, and everything Catherine had ever said about closure, he didn't even recognize the warm tear that slid down his cheek until another one touched the corner of his lip, and he tasted salt. It wasn't just about affection anymore; or obligation; it was about protection, and failure, and loss. Tears, he thought, were appropriately bitter.  
  
There isn't even any mystery in it, he thought. I saw it all; I understand what happened.  
  
Nigel Crane had set up plenty of cameras in Nick's house, after all, and they had captured every last detail in bloody, living color. Grissom wondered how many times he would have to watch that video snippet before the tape wore away. How many times would he see Nick die before the young man's image wavered and shuttered into blackness?  
  
Didn't know; had a feeling he would find out.  
  
He glanced at the gravestone they had picked out. The Stokes family had been almost paralyzed with the loss of their son, and Grissom had found himself stepping in almost instantly, selecting flowers and inscriptions and dates. Natalie Stokes had looked at him gratefully and burst into tears when he tried to tell her that Nick had been a hero, but Paul, Nick's father, had thanked him, wrung his hand, probably unaware of his own weeping. He had gone to Catherine when the family had shown up, expecting her to say something to them, to be motherly and intent-but Catherine had shook her head.  
  
You talk to them, Gil, she said. You're the one he idolized.  
  
And damn, those were hard words to hear, but he had accepted. He was the only one who could do it then, anyway. Sara had actually taken a few days off and fled to see her family in Boston. She called the day of the funeral to apologize-but said that she didn't want to see Nick dead, and Grissom understood that well enough. Warrick was steely-jawed in grief, but grieving nonetheless, his eyes dark and lost and confused.  
  
(It shouldn't have happened to him, man. He was-good, you know?  
  
Yeah, Warrick-I know.)  
  
So instead of passing off the duties onto his subordinates, Grissom had found himself standing in the break room telling two parents how they had lost their son. He was gratified when Greg, silent and pale, had appeared miraculously with cups of Blue Hawaiian coffee and a paper plate loaded with Oreos, shakily smiling, and even more gratified with the tech had refused to leave, instead taking the arduous and unwelcome task of offering Kleenex boxes.  
  
Grissom was pulled out of his reflections when Catherine's hand had touched his shoulder. "It's over, Gil," she said. Her voice was rusty from tears. "People are going home. The family wants to tell you goodbye." She bit her lip like a child when he hugged her, and watched her go kneel down beside Lindsay in the grass, her hose staining. The little blonde girl was weepy.  
  
"Mr. and Mrs. Stokes," he said when the approached him, but then fell blank. "I'm sorry for your loss," was what he said to everyone almost automatically anymore, and even if it was sincere, even if it was angry, because, damn it, this time it was his loss, too-he couldn't tell them that.  
  
"Dr. Grissom." Natalie had calmed since he'd last seen her and she offered one pale hand to him. "I just wanted to tell you that Nick always said you were the best boss he ever had." She smiled slightly, her mouth trembling. "I'm not sure why, but. I wanted you to know that."  
  
He was pretty sure why she wanted to tell him. She had been unapproachable to him in the beginning, locked in mourning, and suspicious of the poor comforts he could offer her. After all, it was Vegas that had killed Nick, to some extent-Vegas and CSI, and Grissom was part of both. But she had seen him cry as they buried her son, and had heard his voice crack when he gave the shitty eulogy, and that had changed things. Paul nodded beside her in silent support, his head bobbling up and down like a dashboard toy.  
  
"Nicky was part of my team," he said. "I wish-that I could have saved him."  
  
And there it was, out in the open, the bare fact. The guilt that had been gnawing him to the bone, screaming that he should have sent someone to watch Nick's house, that he should have known to watch Nigel Crane's last tape before the others. Any one of these things, he thought bitterly, and Nick would have been alive. He had failed, and Nicky had a closed-casket funeral because there was no way in hell, outside of fingerprints, that they could have identified his body.  
  
Natalie Stokes did not look like a woman who would tell him that it was okay, because he had done his best. She just nodded, and said, "So do I." Her husband compulsively squeezed her elbow, and spoke.  
  
"We'll be going back in the morning. We just-that young man, who talked with us."  
  
"Greg Sanders. Our DNA tech. He and Nick were good friends." He found himself recovering and floundering for speech. He lifted his hand and pointed to where Greg stood with Sara and Warrick, and thought ludicrously about saying that Greg was wearing black, when he remembered that of course Greg was, because it was a funeral, and they were grieving, and everyone was in black because Nick was dead.  
  
"Thank you. For everything." Paul shook his hand tightly. "I loved my boy," he said hoarsely. "I would've buried him at home, but this is where he wanted to be." He cast a look at the crowded lot, his eyes surveying how the green plots were suddenly ended by desert and asphalt. "I guess it doesn't matter. He's in heaven, now."  
  
"Yes," Grissom said, and struggled hard to believe in mysteries and happiness again, because if anyone deserved heaven, and peace, it was Nick. "We'll take good care of. of the grave." Another warm tear coursed down his cheek and dropped off his chin, and he wiped it away with a burning feeling of shame. After all those years, was every last drop going to come out of him? Did he have to look like a child?  
  
"Goodbye, Dr. Grissom." He shook hands with them again, and watched as they moved on to Greg. Natalie hugged the young man tightly, and he could see her lips moving, but couldn't decipher the elaborate patterns the way his mother had been able to. He watched them, fascinated, like it was a dance, the push and shove, the bend and pull of her smooth, pink mouth, and Greg's replies, equally nimble, dropping words into the air.  
  
Time seemed to dissolve and swirl around him, until he was alone by the marker, his hands shoved in his pockets, staring at the inscription. Nicholas Stokes, 1970-2002, Beloved Son, Beloved Friend.  
  
He really thought that he should say something, but Grissom had enough trouble talking to the living. He sighed, and the breath hurt coming out of him.  
  
"I'm sorry, Nicky," he said weakly. "I couldn't help."  
  
He sat down at the small, marble bench that rested between the rows. Thought: Nigel Crane. Fucking burn in hell. Grissom rested his head in his hands to hide the tears, and bit the meat of his palm hard when the tears became sobs. It was late before he went home. 


End file.
